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Leeches suck (blood)!

There was one thing I didn’t really like about hiking in Danum Valley, and that I noticed during our first walk in the woods. Borneo might have all kinds of bugs, snakes and lizards, but the species I really disliked was the blood-sucking leech. Oh the leech! You can’t leave Borneo without leech bites, that’s what I was told. And unfortunately, for us it was true.

There are two main varieties of leech in Borneo: the common ground-dwelling brown leech, and the striped orange tiger leech, which often lives a little higher up on foliage. These are propably the quietest creatures in Borneo, yet you will notice once they bite you. The bite of a tiger leech felt like a continuous sting of on an ant, and that’s how I discovered my first little blood-sucking monster. The tiger leech had tug itself off from a leef, onto my raincoat, down my sleeve and onto my right biceps. It then bit me and kept sucking my blood until I tried to scratch my arm. You can only imagine the scream I let out when I realized I had a leech (I’m not a big friend of slimy creatures)! Someone could have thought I’d stepped on a snake.

The brown leech is not as bad, you cannot feel the bite. I had one dangling from my neck until Henri came and flipped it off. The third leech I had was a tiger leech again, and it had managed to bite it’s way through my thick hiking socks onto my anckle! Now this fat and slimy one really hurt as it didn’t want to let go when Henri was tugging it off. I’d made an involuntary blood donation to the ecosystem of Borneo. Three times in two days. Mind you, it could have been worse as the jungle was full of leeches and I even had some in my shoes. My leech bites became very itchy, and even when we were back in Finland I continued scratching the bloody wound. It’s a good job those worms don’t carry infections.

The leeches are a part of the everyday life in Borneo, and the locals are used to the fat and slimy blood-suckers. Ofcourse the locals have found a few effective ways of getting rid of leeches, here’s what I’ve learned:

1. The easiest way to get rid of a leech is to slide your fingernail under their mouth to cut the suction and get them off the wound. After this the little bastard will most likely try to wrap itself around your finger and get attached to you, so you need to act quickly to simply flick the leech away.

2. Leeches cannot stand salt as it will dry their body. If you put salt on a leech, it will immediately drop off.

3. Some people like to use a knife and cut the leech into half, however that’s quite a harsh and bloody thing to do.

In the end, if you get bitten you can always think of yourself as a part of the Borneo ecosystem. And even though the leech sounds (and is) quite discusting, it’s an important species when it comes to the little leech-eating birds! If you want to visit Borneo, you have to accept the leeches. It all comes in one package.

Anna

A 24-year-old Finnish-English traveler, sharing stories from the rainforests of Borneo to the beaches of Sri Lanka, and from the Sahara desert all the way to the Arctic circle.Current location: The Netherlands